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Want to start using Linux.

R

Ranger

n00b
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
45
Well right to the point.
I would like to start using Linux on my pc as a way to expand my technical knoweldge but also just because ive heard it tends to be better than xp if you know how to use it well. Im not a pc flunky and know more than the average person, but im no 1337 programer either. So basically I just started to this thread up to see what the best linux distros for people new to it are, and the best ways to really imerse yourself in it, so I can actually learn something from it.
Ive tinkered with the mandrake distro before but never really new what i should try doing with it :( .

Any suggestions on what I should try would be much appreciated.
 
If you are trying to learn linux I would have to suggest slackware. People claim it's complicated but once you grasp how linux works and how to move through your system w/ just the bash prompt you will be well on your way to understanding linux.

As for what to do once it is installed I would recomend figuring out how to write your own startup script to customize your user prompts and other things. Install MPlayer and never go searching for a codec again.

If you need a question answered there are three places to look that I might suggest: man(the manual command will search through your linux docs for whatever you happen to be looking for), linuxquestions.org(always a receptive ear there with some fairly knowledgable people), and google.com/linux :).
 
Not to shoot down your post, but this has been asked many times before.

And to not sound like a troll, I would suggest Gentoo or LFS.
 
I've heard good things about Ubuntu, but haven't used it myself.

I personally use SuSe. It's a painless install, and if you're not familiar with command line installlations, this will save you a big headache.

At any rate, Linux is really only useful if you learn how to use the commands and familiarize yourself with the command line interface. There is a tremendous amount of information out there on the net about the linux commands and how to use them, etc, etc, but the best way to learn is to just install it and have at it. Nothing beats hands-on experience. :)
 
The real question is why do you want to use linux? Your post wasn't very clear in this. The best I got was that you are looking for a better OS than XP, but with "better" being subjective, I've got nothing.
 
There is a distro for every reason you need to try Linux.

- Ubuntu: Great OS to start to see how linux looks and feels and will detect everything including the kitchen sink. It's just riduculas how much hardware Ubuntu detects.

- Debian: Great OS once you think you would like get your hands dirty from Ubuntu. It's not as easy to install as Ubuntu and some hardware may be harder to get working but that's the fun part.

- Slackware: This is true "Linux". This is what I would install if I plan to use Linux for years and years to come. It's complex and forces you to learn things other distros would do for you manually. Great pay off if you can keep from smashing your keyboard. Make sure you don't load Gnome.

- Fedora: A nice OS that has a install so easy, a drunken money could install it & they have an awesome community.

- Gentoo: By far the most customizable distro and installing this is as much fun as watching paint dry not too mention it's very complex for new Linux users.
 
find a copy of Knoppix live CD and boot that. Voila, linux and if you hate it you havent screwed up your HDD.

If you like it, then go for the distro's pointed out here. Me, I started Mandrake then debian a year later.
 
Ive got a knoppix cd. I tried it out a while ago. I think im going to try installing Slackware, I would like to see linux without a GUI :) thanks for all the help!
 
As far as desktop usage is concerned Windows is just a lot easier to use since it's supported more. For the desktop the only advantage Linux really has is security... which isn't even an issue on Windows if you have some tech. sense.

Seriously, what advantages does Linux have over Windows when it comes just browsing the Internet, checking your mail, chatting online, and playing video games? :confused:

I have used Linux... I still have a working Gentoo install on my system which I used regularly for a long time, but with constant package dependency issues, shitty ATi drivers not working every time a new kernel is released, and... absolutely no advantage over Windows for my purposes... I just went back to Windows.

Right now I could switch over to Linux completely, but it's pointless unless you just want to learn about a different operating system. Don't expect something miraculously new and amazing or have high expectations of things such as marvelous performance boosts which depend on your hardware rather than software.

Linux is not better for regular desktop use than Windows... It's just different.
 
neo86 said:
I have used Linux... I still have a working Gentoo install on my system which I used regularly for a long time, but with constant package dependency issues, shitty ATi drivers not working every time a new kernel is released, and... absolutely no advantage over Windows for my purposes... I just went back to Windows.
Click to expand...

I'm calling TROLL on this tread.
Dependacy issues and Gentoo are mutually exclusive!!! thanks to PORTAGE. every now and again a dodgy ebuild sneaks in, but is fixed the next day.

IF you run ARCH there is no problems, if you inist on running ~ARCH a few programs crashing might occur, but that isn't Gentoo fault, that is sourceocde fault.
 
i've used MS for more than 15 years, i just dived into linux/ubuntu 2 days ago and i am in a completely different world- my first baby steps was kind'a groping in the dark, a completely different world.

i just wanted to learn a new operating system and i hear about linux/ubuntu. personally i'd say windows is still way better than linux, games install effortlessly, they say it has far better security, how about windows? u say windows has many loopholes, new attacks and backdoors and security flaws everyday, isn't that because windows is targeted more often by crackers than linux? the worlds computer run 95% on windows and that makes you a very nice target. now if linux runs on 95% of the worlds computer, wouldnt you suppose we can see as many security flaws as windows have? crackers dont crack linux systems because they have good securities but rather it's because they are run by 1 person in every couple of hundred thousands so whats the point of cracking a linux system to infect only 1 person in a 10 block radius??? the only point of using linux is it's FREE.
 
rysher said:
i've used MS for more than 15 years, i just dived into linux/ubuntu 2 days ago and i am in a completely different world- my first baby steps was kind'a groping in the dark, a completely different world.

i just wanted to learn a new operating system and i hear about linux/ubuntu. personally i'd say windows is still way better than linux, games install effortlessly, they say it has far better security, how about windows? u say windows has many loopholes, new attacks and backdoors and security flaws everyday, isn't that because windows is targeted more often by crackers than linux? the worlds computer run 95% on windows and that makes you a very nice target. now if linux runs on 95% of the worlds computer, wouldnt you suppose we can see as many security flaws as windows have? crackers dont crack linux systems because they have good securities but rather it's because they are run by 1 person in every couple of hundred thousands so whats the point of cracking a linux system to infect only 1 person in a 10 block radius??? the only point of using linux is it's FREE.
Click to expand...

So you are presuming that Linux has as many flaw's as Window's and it is only that Windows is used so often that it is targeted and that there are virus's for it?

Well there are 3 simple facts that disprove that statement. Each one on their own is proof enough, i just like redundancy

But first things first there were some Virus's in Linux years ago (Kernel 1.#) that took advantage of an oversight in the kernel, that got fixed and there have been no virus's since. There have been the odd one or two worms that infect Apache servers and spread, but again they were fixed very quickly.



1) Notoriety
Virus writers want it, they want a certain virus/worm that spreads the fastest and infects the most machines. They dont want to be known by their birth name but by some other annoymous handle, say Uber-1337. So Uber-1337 write's a virus THAT does infect and spreads via Linux machines, their first virus since the kernel 1.# years he will go down in Linux history, so to say that ppl are not trying to make virus's for linux is an EXTREAMLY big assumption. I cannot say they are or arnt, but there is a high probablilty that someone is.

2) Number of Machines
SO you say that Windows is on 95% of all computers in the world, thats nice. And it is because a large number of machines have windows on makes it such a prolific targets. That interesting.

However, 70% of the web runs on Linux machines, yes webservers, game servers DNS servers. you name it. The home might be MS-driven, but the net is the proporty of Linux. Linux was born on the net, it lives on the net. So With such a large percentage of Linux machine out there, they are a very attractive target, yet they are not bombarded with exploits? and why is that?

Equally there are some extreamly funky mobile phones out there (running Sybian OS) there is two known spreadable damaging viruses (spread via bluetooth) that were in the wild 2years ago. HOw many ppl around the world would of had such a phone? and EXTREAMLY small number when compared to the number of Linux machines out there and an insignificant number when compared to windows machines. So with such a small target-base why even create a virus and start it off? BECAUSE THEY CAN, virus writers do not care what they exploit, they will just expolit a vulnerability be it on Windows,Linux, Mobile phone a bloody TV remote if they could. It has come as far as the latest Nokia phone (N70) actually comes with a Norton Antivirus.

So as you can see the arguement based on numbers that makes it a target is pointless.


3) Openness
Ahh the good old classic arguement. With all OSS programs all open-source it means that anyone can find bugs if they want. In fact there are ppl that just GREP sourcecode for common places where buffer overflows occur to check that there is input conditioning to ensure they dont overflow.
Equally there are the evil ppl that are doing the same to try to find an exploit that they can use to spread stuff. Some would say the fact that Windows is closed stops the bad guys from finding any vuln, that hasn't helped it, esp with this WMF exploit now has it?

The difference is the number of good guys vs number of bad guys is in our favour, plus the kind of exploit's that are found are useless. They cause things to crash or a file to be created. A recent Vuln in Gentoo-specific was that SANDBOX (specific to Gentoo) could when executed by anyone make a temperary file. OOO a scary unauth file in the tmp directory, thats bad, that will spread to other machines wont it? so it gets left alone by the virus writers cause they cannot see any use for it.
 
rysher said:
i've used MS for more than 15 years, i just dived into linux/ubuntu 2 days ago and i am in a completely different world- my first baby steps was kind'a groping in the dark, a completely different world.

i just wanted to learn a new operating system and i hear about linux/ubuntu. personally i'd say windows is still way better than linux, games install effortlessly, they say it has far better security, how about windows? u say windows has many loopholes, new attacks and backdoors and security flaws everyday, isn't that because windows is targeted more often by crackers than linux? the worlds computer run 95% on windows and that makes you a very nice target. now if linux runs on 95% of the worlds computer, wouldnt you suppose we can see as many security flaws as windows have? crackers dont crack linux systems because they have good securities but rather it's because they are run by 1 person in every couple of hundred thousands so whats the point of cracking a linux system to infect only 1 person in a 10 block radius??? the only point of using linux is it's FREE.
Click to expand...


For what it's worth, I use FreeBSD (or linux, if needs be) because ... I like it better. Things work together, the available programs are nifty, it's often easier to fix[1], and yes, indeed, it's free. No activation, no arbitrary limits, no licensing I have to consider.

On my laptop I dualboot windows and FreeBSD. [2]
There are two computers on my desk: One runs FreeBSD, one dualboots it with XP.
Best of both worlds, etc. (Windows is still required for some programs and games I like.)

[1] On the computer I use at school I shrank a few partitions and created a new primary one at the end of the disk. The server 2003 install [3] now fails to boot because it can't find <windows root>\system32\ntkernel.exe or something like it. With FreeBSD, the bootloader would ask me where it should look for it, and then I could change /etc/fstab to make the change permanent.
[2] Incidentally, the WiFI+VPN solution at school works much better in FreeBSD, but that's mainly because the cisco vpn client is really horrible.
[3] The XP install on the first primary still boots.
 
My computer background is Amiga. When I went to Upperschool I was exposed to Windows (3.1) and I hated it, I was use to Multitasking .

I got to Uni and we have 98 on a Novel network and I hated that (suppose to be multi-tasking but wasn't and I could crash it really easily)

I got into using the Unix machines (for CAD work) and I was comfortable there, although the desktop was ugly, I spent most of the time in the command line anyway

A mate doing computer science showed me Linux (with GNOME) and I loved it.
My final year came and I got sponcered and I got a laptop. I installed Linux on it (it came with staroffice 5.1) and I forced myself to use Linux to write my final year thesis (learn Staroffice, GIMP and how to access floppy drive and all that)

I did it!! and got to grips with linux, SInce there were no game out for linux and WINE was shite for game I was able to just do my thesis and not get distrcated.

These days it is my primary OS which I use for internet, report writing, simulation (Matlab/Simulink....) and programming (Python and VHDL)
There are some very good native games out (Doom3,Quake (al vers),Unreal (all vers)) so I have plenty to distract myself.

Plus HL2/CSS work pretty well with Cedega.

Since I am part of a gaming clan I still have windows installed for CSS (sicne to play proporty it is better in windows I will admit). Plus with my lass using my comp alot I need MS-Office around for her NHS report. She prefers Linux (got it customised nicely) but she needs to check her work opens ok
 
HHunt said:
For what it's worth, I use FreeBSD (or linux, if needs be) because ... I like it better. Things work together, the available programs are nifty, it's often easier to fix[1], and yes, indeed, it's free. No activation, no arbitrary limits, no licensing I have to consider.

On my laptop I dualboot windows and FreeBSD. [2]
There are two computers on my desk: One runs FreeBSD, one dualboots it with XP.
Best of both worlds, etc. (Windows is still required for some programs and games I like.)

[1] On the computer I use at school I shrank a few partitions and created a new primary one at the end of the disk. The server 2003 install [3] now fails to boot because it can't find <windows root>\system32\ntkernel.exe or something like it. With FreeBSD, the bootloader would ask me where it should look for it, and then I could change /etc/fstab to make the change permanent.
[2] Incidentally, the WiFI+VPN solution at school works much better in FreeBSD, but that's mainly because the cisco vpn client is really horrible.
[3] The XP install on the first primary still boots.
Click to expand...

I have been using freebsd a year or year & a half and openbsd since the 2.1-2.3 days. I have tried linux and even with tons of bsd experience, I still get waaaaaaaaaaaay too many weird problems I can't fix. I'd love to read a "linux for dummies" book written from a Free/OpenBSD perspective.

Rob
 
eeyrjmr said:
I'm calling TROLL on this tread.
Dependacy issues and Gentoo are mutually exclusive!!! thanks to PORTAGE. every now and again a dodgy ebuild sneaks in, but is fixed the next day.

IF you run ARCH there is no problems, if you inist on running ~ARCH a few programs crashing might occur, but that isn't Gentoo fault, that is sourceocde fault.
Click to expand...


Yeah... Telling my experience and opinion is "trolling." :rolleyes:

edit - Just make my point more clear I always used arch and when Gentoo packages didn't work I usually did "make, make install" manually with dependencies and the main package... Surprise, surprise... it worked.
 
I have a Gentoo box that I periodically play around with, in my case I have had trouble learning Linux very well because I can't keep up with it: I'll go through a period where I am interested in it and trying to do some things and I'll learn a lot, but then I won't touch the comp for 3 weeks and I will forget a lot of things. So if you are serious about learning Linux realize you have to put the effort into it and remain goal-orientated, unlike me :)

As far as distro's, I've used Red Hat and Gentoo, and definitely prefer Gentoo. One of the nice things about Gentoo is that if you have an older comp you can have the install heavily optimized for that older hardware. I had Red Hat 9 on an Athlon 800 and it crawled. On the flipside, the comp I run Gentoo on is a dual Celeron 366 and it runs pretty well (although when viewing a webpage with flash, the browser will use an entire cpu). So if you are worried about borking your windows box, the live cd is a good suggestion, or you could install Gentoo on an older machine (the Gentoo forums are awesome, people are really polite and helpful). Dual booting is an option of course, but when you need to reinstall windows, you'll end up with a huge pain in the ass getting linux to work again (which may require reinstalling). I tried dual booting for a while, never going back.
 
eeyrjmr said:
So you are presuming that Linux has as many flaw's as Window's and it is only that Windows is used so often that it is targeted and that there are virus's for it?

Well there are 3 simple facts that disprove that statement. Each one on their own is proof enough, i just like redundancy

But first things first there were some Virus's in Linux years ago (Kernel 1.#) that took advantage of an oversight in the kernel, that got fixed and there have been no virus's since. There have been the odd one or two worms that infect Apache servers and spread, but again they were fixed very quickly.



1) Notoriety
Virus writers want it, they want a certain virus/worm that spreads the fastest and infects the most machines. They dont want to be known by their birth name but by some other annoymous handle, say Uber-1337. So Uber-1337 write's a virus THAT does infect and spreads via Linux machines, their first virus since the kernel 1.# years he will go down in Linux history, so to say that ppl are not trying to make virus's for linux is an EXTREAMLY big assumption. I cannot say they are or arnt, but there is a high probablilty that someone is.

2) Number of Machines
SO you say that Windows is on 95% of all computers in the world, thats nice. And it is because a large number of machines have windows on makes it such a prolific targets. That interesting.

However, 70% of the web runs on Linux machines, yes webservers, game servers DNS servers. you name it. The home might be MS-driven, but the net is the proporty of Linux. Linux was born on the net, it lives on the net. So With such a large percentage of Linux machine out there, they are a very attractive target, yet they are not bombarded with exploits? and why is that?

Equally there are some extreamly funky mobile phones out there (running Sybian OS) there is two known spreadable damaging viruses (spread via bluetooth) that were in the wild 2years ago. HOw many ppl around the world would of had such a phone? and EXTREAMLY small number when compared to the number of Linux machines out there and an insignificant number when compared to windows machines. So with such a small target-base why even create a virus and start it off? BECAUSE THEY CAN, virus writers do not care what they exploit, they will just expolit a vulnerability be it on Windows,Linux, Mobile phone a bloody TV remote if they could. It has come as far as the latest Nokia phone (N70) actually comes with a Norton Antivirus.

So as you can see the arguement based on numbers that makes it a target is pointless.


3) Openness
Ahh the good old classic arguement. With all OSS programs all open-source it means that anyone can find bugs if they want. In fact there are ppl that just GREP sourcecode for common places where buffer overflows occur to check that there is input conditioning to ensure they dont overflow.
Equally there are the evil ppl that are doing the same to try to find an exploit that they can use to spread stuff. Some would say the fact that Windows is closed stops the bad guys from finding any vuln, that hasn't helped it, esp with this WMF exploit now has it?

The difference is the number of good guys vs number of bad guys is in our favour, plus the kind of exploit's that are found are useless. They cause things to crash or a file to be created. A recent Vuln in Gentoo-specific was that SANDBOX (specific to Gentoo) could when executed by anyone make a temperary file. OOO a scary unauth file in the tmp directory, thats bad, that will spread to other machines wont it? so it gets left alone by the virus writers cause they cannot see any use for it.
Click to expand...
what you mean some virus some years ago??? years AGO? it's like the worst OS in 2005. OK not the worst but certainly more flawed. BTW, i found this article just today.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=28786
read that please and that has been surveyed by CERT=Computer Emergency Readiness Team.
 
They mention the number of flaws, but not the type of flaws. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows actually had a good deal more flaws that seriously compromise security. There are so many people combing over Linux there are bound to be more found.
 
rysher said:
what you mean some virus some years ago??? years AGO? it's like the worst OS in 2005. OK not the worst but certainly more flawed. BTW, i found this article just today.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=28786
read that please and that has been surveyed by CERT=Computer Emergency Readiness Team.
Click to expand...

Where does it say Linux is the worst OS in 2005? I read that artical and it says 812 were Windows and 2,328 were UNIX/Linux flaws.

For starters lets Correct you ignorance

The Link you posted was theInquirer's interpretation of the actual results and they have interpreted it wrong
The actual results for 2005 are here
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB2005.html

So 812 For Windows: That is for Windows XP, NT, 98...
So 2328 for Linux: That is Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,OSX, the BSDs, and Linux, but for a hundred different versions of Linux.

Notice some serious biasing? grouping together 5 major big Operating systems and then "linux".

With Linux they mention a vuln for "Linux", they then say the same vuln for RedHat, for Mandrake,... IE count the same vuln multiple times all adding to the 2328

Equally there is some vuln that because they were mentioned on a few occations gets counted more then once

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051231142317870
econd, the Unix/Linux list duplicates items, counting a vulnerability more than once in the list. For an example, note that it lists Eric Raymond Fetchmail POP3 Client Buffer Overflow (Updated). However, the same vulnerability is listed, under the same title, four times. That's because it was reported in the week of August 10-15, again in the week of August 17-23, in September 6-13, and the week of November 9-16. Worse, for any comparison purposes, the same vulnerability is also reported as Fetchmail POP3 Client Buffer Overflow, so in reality one vulnerability is listed 5 times, making the total of 2328 meaningless unless you carefully comb through it to weed out duplications.
Click to expand...

again discrediting the results.

Also NONE of the Linux vuln would result in root-access, yet the majority of Windows vuln would have resulted in Root/Admin control.

There are NO exploits in the wild to take advantage of any of the vuln in *NIX, but there are multiple exploits in the wild to take advantage of flaws in Windows.

The average vuln in Linux is such that a program would crash, not really an exploitable vuln now is it?

ALso there are vuln like http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB05-208.html#sandbox
Where a specific program that is part of Gentoo only could allow a user to make a tempary file.

Lets compare this with the Windows WMF exploit that if someone were to go to a certain website, their computer would be taken over :rolleyes:


Do you see a difference between what a typical Linux vuln would be and a typical Windows Vuln would be...


Basically Windows was the most vuln Operating system of 2005 NOT Linux as you have stated


Oh here is the list of the total number of Linux virus's
http://www.viruslibrary.com/virusinfo/Linux.htm



Please do not spread FUD
 
Robstar said:
I have been using freebsd a year or year & a half and openbsd since the 2.1-2.3 days. I have tried linux and even with tons of bsd experience, I still get waaaaaaaaaaaay too many weird problems I can't fix. I'd love to read a "linux for dummies" book written from a Free/OpenBSD perspective.

Rob
Click to expand...


Why leave? :D

That said, I haven't seen much of the kind. There's a lot of material meant for people coming the other way, but that hardly helps.
edit: I guess one of the reasons might be that the linux distros are different enough that you'd have to make "Gentoo for BSD users", "Debian for BSD users", "RHEL for BSD users", and so on.

eeyrjmr: You forgot one thing:
There's more unix server programs counted. How many mailservers count as "unix" as opposed to windows?
(At least qmail, sendmail and postfix, while I guess windows only gets docked for problems with exchange.)
 
HHunt said:
Why leave? :D

That said, I haven't seen much of the kind. There's a lot of material meant for people coming the other way, but that hardly helps.


eeyrjmr: You forgot one thing:
There's more unix server programs counted. How many mailservers count as "unix" as opposed to windows?
(At least qmail, sendmail and postfix, while I guess windows only gets docked for problems with exchange.)
Click to expand...

Exactly, that report is essentially only useful in listing vuln NOT as a resource to compare Windows vs everything else
 
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